116. However, this calls for an explanation of how angels can feel and sense this as their own and so accept and retain it when in fact it is not theirs, given the statement that angels are not angels on their own but by virtue of what is within them from the Lord. The essence of the matter is this. There is freedom and rationality in every angel. These two qualities are there so that angels can be open to love and wisdom from the Lord. Neither of these, though--neither the freedom nor the rationality--belongs to the angels. They are in them but belong to the Lord. However, since these two elements are intimately united to angels' life, so intimately united that you could call them linked to their life, it seems as though they belong to the angels. Freedom and rationality enable them to think and intend and to speak and act; and what they think, intend, speak, and act as a result seems to be done on their own. This gives rise to the reciprocal element that is the means to union.

Still, the more that angels believe that love and wisdom are within them and claim them for themselves as their own, the more there is nothing angelic within them. To the same extent, then, there is no union with the Lord for them. They are outside the truth; and since truth is identical with heaven's light, they are correspondingly unable to be in heaven. This leads to a denial that they live from the Lord and a belief that they live on their own and therefore that they possess some divine essence. The life called angelic and human consists of these two elements--freedom and rationality.

This leads to the conclusion that angels have a reciprocal ability for the sake of their union with the Lord, but that the reciprocal element, seen as an ability, is the Lord's and not theirs. As a result, angels fall from angelhood if they abuse this reciprocal element that enables them to feel and sense what is the Lord's as their own by actually claiming it for themselves. The Lord himself teaches us in John 14:20-24, 15:4-5, 6 that union is reciprocal, and in John 15:7 that the Lord's union with us and ours with him occurs in things that belong to him, things called "his words."

2802. 'Isaac said to Abraham his father - he said - My father. And he said, Here I am, my son' means a conversing - which took place in the Lord and was grounded in love - between Divine Truth and Divine Good. This is clear from the meaning of 'Isaac', the son, as Divine Truth, and from the meaning of 'Abraham', the father, as Divine Good, both of which are dealt with in the paragraph following this; and from the affectional content of these expressions showing that both are grounded in love. From this it is evident that a conversing of the Lord with His Father is meant. Within these words more arcana lie concealed than can be perceived by any human mind, as may be recognized from the fact that the verb 'said' occurs four times in this verse (in the Word when something new is being introduced, the expression 'and said' is in the habit of appearing, see 2061, 2238, 2260) and also from the fact that the words in this verse are expressive of love, which, when they come to be perceived by celestial angels who understand the inmost sense, are formed by those angels into utterly heavenly ideas. For celestial angels form for themselves enlightened ideas from the affectional content of the Word, whereas spiritual angels do so from the spiritual meanings of the words and the subject matter there, 2157, 2275. Thus from the words of this verse in which there are four distinct and separate phases and affections springing from love, they form ideas such as cannot possibly come down within man's range of understanding nor find expression in words; and that formation of ideas is effected with an abundance and variety beyond words. All this shows the nature of the Word in its internal sense, even in places, like the present verse, where it appears plain and simple in the letter.